


absent of cause or excuse

by cress_ent



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Character Study, Dream is in Prison, Gen, Prison, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), and sam learns about what dream did to tommy, dream monologues about his actions to sam while he's stuck in the prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29181216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cress_ent/pseuds/cress_ent
Summary: A soft hum carries through the wall of lava. Sam can imagine it, the content look on Dream’s face. “The one thing that confuses me, though,” Dream says. “Tommy visited.”He’ll throw Dream a little bit of a bone, maybe. “Why is it confusing that Tommy visited?”"Because why?” Dream lets out another laugh, but it’s airy and breathless and disbelieving. Sam gets the feeling he’s wanted to say these things for a long time. “Why would he come visit me, Sam, when I was socruelto him?"-or, in which sam has to listen to every monologue dream gives about his motivations, and his actions, and his intentions, and learns more than a prison warden even should
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Sam | Awesamdude, Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 168





	absent of cause or excuse

**Author's Note:**

> // obligatory "this is about the characters they play in the dream smp lore and not the actual people" disclaimer
> 
> // [dream voice] According to AO3 Statistics, only a small percentage of my readers actually leave kudos and comments. So if you end up liking this fic, please consider leaving a kudos or comment - it's free, and you can always remove it later if you change your mind. Enjoy the fic.

For at least an hour a day, Sam has to guard the innermost sanctum of the prison he built.

The sanctum with a lava wall between the actual holding cell and the outer room. Behind all the safety precautions and mechanisms that Sam spent hours and days and weeks planning and building. (He ignores the fact that the man that helped him with the schematics lies behind the wall of lava in front of him. It’s not like he’d be able to escape, anyways.)

Dream always seems to brighten up when Sam lets him know he’s around. Sam knows it’s not for any reason other than that he’s the most regular visitor Dream has. (It’s been a week, and the only person that’s come to visit was Tommy, for an hour, until he asked a question that made Dream call for Sam to end the visitation. Sam still hasn’t let either of them know that he heard the entire conversation.) He gets talkative — more than usual, the quiet mutterings that carry through the vents and the hissing of lava rising in volume until Sam can hear every word clearly. Dream tries to engage in conversation with him. Sam never gives him more than vague, small answers.

At some point, Sam realized that — no one ever really knew anything about Dream. George and Sapnap were the closest to him, but — from the mutterings Sam’s heard, from what Tommy shared in small anecdotes sandwiched between his familiar humour, (part of Sam wonders how much of that humour is just deflection and coping, but he doesn’t think he’d ever bring that up,) even those two had no idea what Dream was doing. 

At some point, Dream ended up alone. 

Sam doesn’t even have to ask him why.

“I realized — it’s the attachments they had to things that gave people power over them,” Dream tells him, voice as eager as it was when they pored over schematics together, figuring out the best ways to construct this prison. “You saw how heated Tommy’s gotten over his discs, or his pets. How passionate Wilbur was about L’Manberg, and how that led to his downfall when what L’Manberg stood for disappeared before his very eyes. How the biggest conflicts on this server Sapnap’s had were around his own pets, around the emotional attachments he formed to these animals.”

Sam knows that within his role as main guard and prison warden, he can’t respond. So he doesn’t. 

“And the most logical course of action, then,” Dream continues, (he’s never needed Sam’s response to continue on a conversation of his own,) “was to not only secure power over everyone on the server using their own attachments against them, but to cut off my own. So no one else could do the same to me.”

Dream can’t see him behind the lava wall. Still, Sam forces his expression into one of neutrality, despite the emotions swirling through him being anything but. 

“Tommy wasn’t lying,” Dream says, not an ounce of remorse in his voice. “About the community house. I blew it up.” That almost gets him — that house was one of the first structures on this server, something that’s existed beyond all the sides and factions and wars, something he helped build and has memories around, and to know that its creator helped tear it down? To know that Dream not only went against his own attachments to the place, but then lied about it to divide them all further and unite them against Tommy? It hurts Sam more than he can ever let on. “If I cut everything off— if I got rid of every attachment I’ve ever had— they’d be powerless against me, Sam! I know they are. And maybe I’m not the one that can exploit all those attachments anymore, but— they’re there. It’s only a matter of time before someone does.”

Dream laughs. Sam doesn’t even try and get a read on the man that’s always been unreadable. “But it’s alright, though. That I’ve got no attachments, that is. If I’ve got no attachments to anyone, no one has any attachment to me. That’s why no one can have power over me that same way.”

A soft hum carries through the wall of lava. Sam can imagine it, the content look on Dream’s face. “The one thing that confuses me, though,” Dream says. “Tommy visited.”

A pause. A soft hiss. “Sam, I burned my clock.”

Sam sighs. “Again?”

Even through the lava, Sam can hear the mischief that infuses Dream’s voice. “I’m just so  _ clumsy _ , Sam, can you blame me?”

Of all the ways the people of this SMP would describe Dream, clumsy is most definitely not one of them. Still, Sam says nothing, just silently flips the switch that halts the flow of the lava, grabbing a spare clock from the chest that sits near the entrance. 

He’ll throw Dream a little bit of a bone, maybe. “Why is it confusing that Tommy visited?”

"Because why?” Dream lets out another laugh, but it’s airy and breathless and disbelieving. Sam gets the feeling he’s wanted to say these things for a long time. “Why would he come visit me, Sam, when I was so  _ cruel _ to him?"

Sam realizes, as he stares into the glowing sea of magma that separates him from Dream, that Tommy still hasn’t told anyone about what happened during his exile. He’s talked around it, sure, mentioned that Dream did some awful things to him, but — never anything specific. Never anything more than just a breath that shakes and catches in his throat on the way in and eyes that dart nervously from side to side. 

This might be the first account  _ anyone’s  _ gotten of Tommy’s time in exile.

The lava slowly drains from the passage, and Sam can see Dream across the roiling, glowing sea, held in place by obsidian and netherite and chains that hang between his arms and legs, preventing him from the full range of movement Sam knows he’d take advantage of if he got the chance. Sam’s glad that he wears his own mask, the strange anxiety and apprehension he feels surely showing on his face as he boards the platform to traverse the sea of magma. 

"Right, right, you’re not supposed to respond.” Dream grins as he sees Sam approaching. “Can't interact with the prisoners aside from the official stuff! I get it." 

Sam knows the prison is inescapable. Sam is still filled with chilling fear.

The platform clicks against the obsidian cell that holds Dream, Sam stepping off and holding out the clock towards him. Dream doesn’t take it.

"Somehow—” and Dream’s tone shifts from playful to incredulous, from light to borderline angry and bitter, “somehow blowing up his armour every day wasn't enough to drive him away? Threatening to kill his best friend — which, I would have brought him back eventually, Tommy’s too attached for me to just kill Tubbo forever — didn't drive him away?" Dream laughs, and it’s equal parts crazed and bitter. "You'd think that by this point, he wouldn't be able to stomach the sight of my face! Not when— when  _ creeper holes _ send him running. God, Sam, is the kid crazy? Why? Why did he visit?" 

Sam makes a mental note to check on Tommy as soon as he’s off duty. He gives Dream a noncommittal shrug.

Dream snatches the clock from Sam’s outstretched hand, a movement so quick it startles him, reminds Sam exactly why he needs to be careful, alert, aware, whenever he deals with him. Even in the prison, even through a wall of netherite bars and with chains restricting his movement, Dream is still a terrifying force to behold. "You'll crack one day, Sam. You'll answer me eventually.”

The smile that spreads across Dream’s face seems innocuous and playful, but the look in his eyes is anything but.

“They all do, apparently.”

**Author's Note:**

> the implications of sam's character having to listen to dream talk about everything he's done and everyone he's hurt are so good from a writing perspective. amen. this fic has been rotting my brain until i cld get it done and it is DONE and there are some parts of it i really love
> 
> kudos and comments make my day!!


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